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… I spoke with the ideals on how to get to where we must be in the 21st century in which education is quickly changing the dynamics of development. Experts and political scholars here and all of us must understand that the foundation and financing of a university are not for the more carefree. Visitors who hold the fort for public universities constantly claim not to have enough to finance education in the way we want it in the same 21st century. In other words, if we examine the seeds of our education development times, what we will see now is that the educational sector at home is not good and governments declare emergencies only every time they want to keep general elections. We are talking at a time when most of the education leaders suggest policies that will bring us where we can internationalize higher education again. This was the theme of my lesson in call to Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba, in the state of wave in December 2023. But from the way we read the complaint book on the financing of higher education daily at this time of the economic crisis, where will we arrive on the path for the internationalization of higher education?
Isn’t it time to question Professor Woleinka’s suggestion a few years ago on the opportunity to close all Nigerian universities for a year or two in order to renovate the “ivory towers”, learning citadels and innovation centers that should be? I asked a question similar to the lesson of Akungba 2023. But the answer continued to blow in the wind.
Once again, this document is not a fundamental document on the role of the university in a developing country. Nor is it a research topic on the role of public intellectuals in development. Rather, it is a stimulating point of discussion on why all our representatives in the government, all our carriers of duty should stop the “cables rituals” called licenses of new private universities and the obsession of the federal government for the political project called the Federal University in all the states of the Federation. This is time to tell them to pay attention to better rather than more universities whose products cannot contribute to national development, no thanks to poor funding.
It is time to invoke the elderly of the earth, in particular those who had enjoyed “beautiful old days” in this same country when universities were universities to support a motion that governments at all levels should stop all priority projects and declare a real emergency on education in order to invest consciously and sincerely in them.
This means that there were good moments here when some Americans were also applying to read English studies at the University of Ibadan. As I noticed in some presentations, in 2008, I met an African American, in Miami in Florida who said he was a classmate of Professor Gordini Gabriel Darah at the University of Ibadan, where he did his doctorate in English/literature in the early 80s. The woman gave me a note to give to her radical classmate, GG Darah. At that time he was president of a university in Florida. This was internationalization at the Premier University College of Nigeria when an American could read about a great university in Nigeria without the Internet. There were stories of foreign students in first generation universities when there was truly a universe in universities. How do we resume the lost paradise when we can be part of the universe again?
The motorway universities without universe?
What is more horrible than a situation in which most Nigerian universities have become simple factories to produce unemployed graduates at all levels? All the main highways in some parts of the country have become attractions for private universities, most of which are presumed to be only for the ways to recycle money for some scammers who can no longer hide these mud funds and stolen abroad due to the danger in the transfer of illicit money now that we have the financial intelligence unit of Nigeria (Nfiu). But unfortunately, most of the teachers of the universities of mushrooms cannot allow their children to be admitted in most of the institutions they teach. I know many of them, who should still fight through thick and thin to send their departments abroad where they think that a real learning takes place.
But we reflect on this classic. According to Gasset (2005) on the Mission of the University. Because the university must be mainly: the University; Profession and science. This is important for our leaders, political managers and university owners.
(A) the university consists, mainly and basically of higher education that normal man should receive.
(B) It is necessary to make this man normal first of all, a cultured person: to culminate it. It therefore follows that the main function of the University is to teach the great cultural discipline, that is to say:
1. The physical scheme of the world (physical)
2. The fundamental themes of organic life (biology)
3. The historical process of the human species (history)
4.The structure and functioning of social life (sociology)
5 The plan of the universe (philosophy)
(C) It is necessary to make the man normal a good professional. In addition to his apprenticeship for culture, the University will teach him, with the cheapest, direct and effective procedures, can devise a good doctor, a good judge, a good teacher of mathematics or history.
The specific character of this professional teaching must be put aside, however for further discussions.
Whether it is local or “lines”, the university should be quite equipped to play its main role in transforming the normal man to be what he wants to be: professional. But can the university in Nigeria play this role today in this era of digital technologies? We cannot and this is why Google’s artificial intelligence center has been in Ghana since 2018. The Ai experts from Google were in Nigeria, then looking for a well -equipped university between more than 200, therefore to be the guest of the center Ai del Del Giant of technology in West Africa. They could not find anyone and went to Ghana with about 15 national public universities and 11 private universities and found a well -equipped computer engineering school capable of hosting their artificial intelligence center. What a giant in the sun! You are not a giant of a nation if you cannot excel in the STEM subjects in the 21st century. Where will the development take place since your universities do not produce young engineers in today’s world like those young giants of technology that help the Trump administration to interrupt the alleged impure bureaucracies in the United States through the independent department of government efficiency (dogge) that globalists and liberals do not want to see in the United States?
Once again, where are our leaders at all levels, including state and national assemblies at this critical moment? Why are our leaders and representatives only worried about the next elections without worrying about the next generation of leaders who should be produced by our universities? Will the malnutrite and poorly equipped students not be tomorrow’s leaders tomorrow? How many of the over two hundred million people would have the resources to send their children to the so -called good schools abroad while our apparently leaders are doing today? Are our leaders aware of the fact that most of our university teachers in scientific and technological schools are moving abroad in search of more green pastures? The Minister of Education tells the President and to some arrogant negotiators of the Ministry of Labor with the Asuu members that the most serious nations, in particular some in the Nordic countries, pay teachers better than other public officials because they believe that only satisfied teachers can produce better graduates? Aren’t Then Aware That In The United States, Which is Still Proud of Its Exceptionalism on All Fronts, Public Office Include Policy Makers Are Still Concerned About The Fact that Their American Children (Students) Are Well Outside The Top-Ten International Student Rankings in Reading, Science and Science and Mathematics Apart from the Nation’s Position of Leadership On Everything From The Economy to the Military To Issues of Moral Authority? They (Americans) are starting to argue that their evaluation “will continue to precipitate unless we undertake a dramatic action …”. Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of Washington DC, public schools from 2007-2010, now a driving force behind the reform of American education, has already written a classic on this development, entitled “Radical: Fighting to Past First”. The founder and CEO of Studentsfirst has attracted attention to the fact that although the United States are well known as the world leader in innovation, which boast bright thinkers and trendy companies, however there is a fact that this status is at serious risk because American children are outside the international ranking at the top.
Come with me in the South -est Asia. The power behind Samsung, a global brand is South Korea, with a population of about 51.7 million. They have more than Samsung to export in the world because of the power that the quality education that take seriously have given them. They are among the first five countries with excellence in the research and development funding (R&D) in the global context. This is their power. You can make the same request as Singapore. Singapore’s economic power is not linked to any extractive sector. It is linked only to their intellectual power. Yes, their brain power through the quality of education their legend, Lee Kuan, has left them. There are more examples of these powerful countries. How many times should we write that there is a link between the economic power of South Africa and the quality of its universities? It is not by chance that the best university in Africa in all global assessments is the University of Cape Town. Isn’t that of the top ten universities in Africa, most of the time, are from six to eight in South Africa? What we are saying does not concern the creation of Technical University, Agricultural University, University of Medical Sciences, Maritime University, Police University and Army that are subfinited and poorly equipped. This is not the number of graduates in the country. It concerns the quality of graduates. It concerns the ability of graduates to resolve the 21st challenges in this era of high -tech digital switchesβ¦.
* This is an extract from the lesson (9, 307 words) entitled: “Universities can trigger national development between economic challenges?” I delivered last Thursday 6 March 2025, to the eleventh distinct lesson of the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo City, Ondo City.
Continuesβ¦
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